1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to a process and device for measuring the occupancy in passenger transportation means.
2. Description of the Prior Art
It is known to carry out passenger occupancy measurements, in particular in public transportation means such as buses, trains, and cable cars as well, whereby at an entrance gate appropriate passenger detectors are operated which perceive the passing through of passengers. For this purpose light barriers, turn stiles or the physical counting of passengers is used. It is the goal of such passenger occupancy measurements to establish the rate of utilization of the vehicle. Present devices suffer from significant disadvantages. For example, although present devices count the number of passengers passing the entrance gate, they cannot relate simultaneously to the number of passengers leaving the means of transportation.
To date it is not known how to carry out such a passenger occupancy measurement in passenger cars. Such an occupancy measurement, however, is extremely desirable as it provides a basis for allowing an increase in person utilization of individual passenger cars in private transportation. A passenger car as fully loaded as possible reduces the number of circulating vehicles. This is of particular importance in conurbations where the number of circulating vehicles should be reduced as much as possible.
Previous concepts regarding so-called traffic reduction were based on the assumption that more vehicles may actually be accommodated in the smallest possible space, e.g., by the building of parking structures, the construction of the appropriate expressways or by means of intelligent traffic management systems that were to assure a more favorable flow of traffic. The proposed systems are very expensive and require large amounts of public money and do not reduce traffic volume, i.e., providing no satisfactory solution to the problem. It has been shown that in industrialized countries, circulating passenger cars are occupied by no more than one or two passengers on average, which results in a low passenger utilization rate factor.
What is needed therefore is an effective process and device for the detection of passenger occupation rates in transportation means.